Oral argument was held June 11 in the highly unusual case of Synthes USA HQ Inc. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

• The Attorney General faced skeptical questioning from the Commonwealth Court, with one judge suggesting that the Attorney General was “defeating,” rather than representing, the interests of the Department of Revenue.
• Synthes involves the question of how receipts from services were required to be sourced in tax year 2011, before Pennsylvania’s legislative change to market-based sourcing in 2014.
• Synthes, a Pennsylvania-based company, seeks a refund of tax pursuant to a market-based interpretation of Pennsylvania’s pre-2014 cost-of-performance (COP) statute.

Read our full Legal Alert here.